It might snow this weekend

This is the second time that I’m in Russia for the fall, and it’s the second time that I feel like I’m missing out. I guess I’ve been spoiled my whole life by the length of New England autumns, by the crisp air of moonlit nights, by the multicolored splendor of so many leaves committing mass suicide, the random and bizarre heat of Indian summer against the sudden chill as soon as the sun’s touched the tree tops (I’m picturing so many cross-country practices that started with Caddy yelling at the guys who took off their shirts and ended with everyone donning windpants and gloves – in the same day).

It’s just cold here. Cold cold cold. I’ll get used to it, I know; and it’s not even that cold yet, “objectively speaking,” usually around high 40s, low 50s. The few times I’ve been out and it’s been colder than that it hasn’t seemed so bad -- because it’s colder. At that point I can just say, “Yeah. It’s winter. I know what this feels like – that’s fine.” Like this, though…

I think the main problem is that things like heat are centrally controlled (and when I say that, I don’t mean by someone in this building. I mean by someone in this city) and haven’t been turned on yet, and I have a wall-to-wall window that only gets morning sunlight. Let me just say that I’ve temporarily solved my fridge problem; putting my morning Chudo (a yogurt-shake-in-a-bottle…thing…) against the window, it’s just as cold as it is when I get it from the store.

I love it when the heat comes on and one suddenly cannot sleep with a single blanket any more, it’s so warm in the room...

I’m going insane, too, because my external hard drive – and this is totally random, I swear. It sat on the corner of my desk by itself for about a week, I didn’t go near it, I didn’t knock it off, there is no human error involved in this at all – this son of beetch suddenly decided that it would no longer work. I’m flipping out. Only about a third of my music was on my hard drive, but I’m afraid it was a lot of the stuff that I’ve had since…middle school…and rather rare stuff, too, from the times when the Internet was wild and free and “It was beautiful, and everyone shared” (thank you Vonnegut). Not to mention Doctor Who and Psych. How am I expected to eat dinner, now? This was my routine: and food, and a TV show, and then reading (this starts around 8:30, 9) and then bedtime.

The past couple of nights I’ve been eating to The Sandbox, which is entertaining but not quite the same. I’m hoping for a harvest-tide miracle that’ll rejuvenate Mr. I. O. Mega.

Edit to add that I’ve had a chance, now, to examine the damage to the music, and it’s thankfully not as extensive as I thought it was. I have almost everything I’ve lost on CD at home; I was worried the stuff I lost was the stuff that’s either 1) Russian, but not from the random mix-tapes I have (the only thing I lost there was Nochnye Snaipery, which I’m not really too upset about) or 2) the stuff that’s not available on CD in the US at all (e.g. the Broadway version of Chess, which I’m not ashamed to like. Nor am I ashamed to still have it on my computer!)

BUT this brings me to a fun game, a version of “Who’d You Rather?” It’s too bad that I have X, but lost Y:

CCR, but no Irish Rovers
Coldplay, but no Snow Patrol
Death Cab for Cutie, but no Radiohead
Fuel. Not even in place of anything. Just one of those things I’ve had for so long…and am now sad.
Green Day’s “American Idiot,” but none of the earlier CDs survived
Muse’s discography, except the newest release. Moscow is still destroying my soul in that search.

ROD

sukin syn - son of beetch. It’s not mat, I’ve seen it printed in poetry and fiction, so I feel like I can use it here. Then again, apparently it’s becoming easier and easier to see the f-bomb in print in the US…